


Noin's Day

by Mendeia



Series: Tales from Gundam Island [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Missing Scene, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 14:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2029050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia/pseuds/Mendeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment in the life of Lieutenant Noin while in the service of Republic City and Relena Peacecraft.  Probably her favorite, actually, other than the whole saving-the-world-with-peace day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noin's Day

**Author's Note:**

> This is more like an outtake than a oneshot, brought to you because my beta reader laughed SO HARD when this happened in the story and begged for the details. So here it is in full.
> 
> Enjoy!

The messenger hawks were arriving in _flocks_. Noin had never seen anything like it.

"Captain!" she shouted.

"Yes, ma'am!" the captain of the Republic City guards snapped a smart salute. His men were flying about the observation tower themselves, trying to snag all the different hawks coming in at the same time.

Noin quietly thanked any spirits who were listening that Princess Dorothy was elsewhere. After all, since Noin herself was not at Relena's side, neither did Dorothy need to be – in fact, today the City's Council was meeting on very private matters better kept far from the Fire Nation royal. Since Noin was taking a turn with the men in the central observation tower overlooking the city, Dorothy had taken herself off to speak to her own small contingent of guards.

"Report!" Noin ordered. Then, because there were simply too many birds coming in, she pushed her hands forward and created perches every few finger-lengths along the entire wall of the stone tower, providing places for the many birds to rest.

"It's...that is..." the captain had an armful of pages, most of which he hadn't even unrolled yet. Noin took pity on the man and plucked one from the top of the pile. It was wrapped in a dark green ribbon, which signified important intelligence.

"Allow me," she said as she opened the scroll. At once, her eyes widened.

"Captain, assemble the guards at once!" she cried, and something in her wide-eyed and yet dangerously calm expression must have brought the man back from the chaos of the moment. He dropped the pile he held and began bellowing orders.

"You there! Sound the alert! And you four – contain those birds or at least send them away!"

As the scene began to reassemble itself into something like order, the captain stepped to where Noin had been reading the details in the message.

"Lieutenant Noin, what is it?"

When Noin looked back up from the last line of the message, her face was implacable, set hard as stone. But the man was an earthbender himself, and he could sense the very slight tremor in the ground around her and the cracks she was unconsciously creating and resealing beneath her feet in her agitation.

"The Fire Nation has declared war on us, captain," she said.

To his credit, the man didn't waste time with shock. Instead, he nodded sharply once before bellowing all new orders and, when they weren't obeyed quickly enough, backing them up with flying boulders to speed things along.

Suddenly there was a crash.

"Relena!"

Noin didn't really recall leaving the observation tower. She realized later she had simply thrown herself from the low walls, gathering a portion of one of them and bending it on the way down as she slid over rooftops and into the street. There was nothing important enough to take her focus from getting to Relena as quickly as possible.

The Fire Nation had _declared war_. If Dorothy already knew – _or what if she had known in advance?_ – it meant Relena had never been in so much danger.

Republic City flew by, and before Noin could even take a deep breath she stood at the foot of the splendid building that housed the Council. She charged straight up the broad staircase, cognizant that the city's alarm was sounding in full now. Guards spilled from every corner of the city's center, and several individuals not in uniform but loyal anyway were running through the streets. To a man, they were looking to Noin for guidance.

"Protect the Council!" she shouted as she vanished into the building.

The hallways had never seemed so long as they did in that moment. But as she ran, Noin's senses were racing ahead of her, and they warned her as she rounded the corner to brace herself.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant Noin." Dorothy's smile was pure calculation.

"Princess Dorothy," Noin came to a halt and planted herself, hating that she was not between the Fire Nation princess and the door to the Council chambers beyond. "I assume you have heard?"

"I have," Dorothy was still smiling. "It's very exciting, don't you think?"

"That's not the word I would use, no." Noin narrowed her eyes. But she was silently grateful for Dorothy's love of grandstanding.

Because while the Fire Nation princess was busy posing and smiling, Noin was bending.

It wasn't something every earthbender could do, but Noin could bend earth she couldn't see. And she knew the chambers beyond intimately, every column, every tile. While she shifted her body as if bracing for a battle against Dorothy, Noin was actually moving earth in the room beyond as a warning.

"Contrary to what you might believe," Dorothy said almost sweetly except for the chill that ran up Noin's spine at the sound of her tone, "I am not here to assassinate Relena Peacecraft."

"Aren't you?" Noin asked.

"No. As I have said before, I am a great admirer of Relena's. I would like to watch her struggle with the situation, learn from how she responds. There is no more fascinating entertainment than the birth of a new world, and I would like to be here to watch it."

"Well," Noin felt her face contort into a smile like a belled challenge, "I'm afraid I cannot permit that. My duty is to protect Relena Peacecraft first and foremost, and while your... _interests_ may be peaceable, you will forgive me if I cannot accept the risk."

"Oh, must it come to this?" Dorothy asked.

"Oh yes," Noin cracked her knuckles. "It definitely must."

"Enough!"

Both women were surprised not just by the voice, but by from whence it came – Relena was standing and peering down at the two of them from a hole in the ceiling high above. Noin nodded once to Pagan, standing ready at Relena's elbow. Of course the old campaigner would have evacuated the Council through the very walls of the room. And if her earth-sense was correct, hidden just out of sight of the hole was the Kyoshi warrior Middie, waiting and ready should Dorothy make an attack.

"Princess Dorothy," Relena said, and her voice rang with authority and confidence, "my personal feelings on the matter are irrelevant. You have been a guest in my house and I am...grateful for the time we spent learning from one another."

"I hear a 'however' coming, Relena," Dorothy called almost tauntingly.

"However," Relena raised an eyebrow, "I cannot permit your presence within my nation under the current circumstance. I would ask you to leave the city quietly."

"But it is by your side that I will learn the most, don't you think?"

Noin bit her tongue in two places to keep from snarling at that entreating, manipulative question.

"I'm afraid," Relena said stonily, "that you will have to learn from afar." Then her face softened. "I'm sorry it has to be this way, you know. I would have liked to have perhaps gotten the chance to help you see things differently."

"Oh, Relena," Dorothy's smile curled broadly. "I feel the same way."

"And _I feel_ like escorting you out of the city," Noin snapped. "Princess Dorothy, you heard the Peacecraft. You have been asked to leave Republic City. Will you go quietly?"

There was a long, tense moment.

Then Dorothy began to drop into a firebending pose.

But Noin was quicker. Noin had, after all, spent months at a firebending academy on Capital Island. Before Dorothy had set her root, Noin stamped into the floor and a section of tile shot upwards, tipping the princess over backwards.

Dorothy turned the fall into a roll and came up with sparks and wisps of flame licking around her.

"Either way you're leaving Republic City," Noin promised darkly. "It's just a question of how many of us it takes."

Because Noin knew what Dorothy couldn't. Noin knew that the building was absolutely _surrounded_ by loyal Republic City benders.

"And here I thought we had become such good friends," Dorothy drawled.

"Not a chance," Noin grumbled.

Then another person appeared around the corridor behind Noin, the captain of the guard.

"Lieutenant," he said with a wary glance at the princess, "we have apprehended the entire Fire Nation diplomatic party. We are prepared to lead them out of the city under heavy guard. Do you need assistance?"

Noin looked to Dorothy and raised an eyebrow. "That's up to her."

"Very well," Dorothy smoothly rose and dropped her arms. "After all, I would hate for our little skirmish to endanger _dear_ Relena." She smiled up at Relena above. "If the Peacecraft wishes for me to leave, I suppose I must obey her will. After all, she has been such a _good friend_ to me while I've been here."

"Goodbye, Dorothy," Relena said politely, but coldly.

But the moment was broken by a flurry of wings as a bird ducked in through some door or window, diving straight to Relena. There was a certain amount of confusion while Pagan and Middie both tried to intercept the hawk, but it stubbornly fought them off and landed on Relena's shoulder, almost shoving its messenger tube under her nose until she drew it out to read.

"What is it?" Noin called up to her.

"Noin," Relena's blue eyes were bright with warring emotions. "Please escort Princess Dorothy and her entourage out of the city by the eastern pass as quickly as possible. We have an incoming party asking for sanctuary as emissaries from Omashu, and they have a wounded friend."

Relena balled up the message and dropped it through the hole to Noin, who read it with a mix of alarm and surprise. When she looked up to Dorothy, her whole expression closed. It was beyond time for the Fire Nation princess who had been a thorn in Noin's side since arriving to finally leave.

Dorothy seemed to wake to sense and did no more taunting, allowing herself to be led away under the contingent of guards who surrounded her. The march through the streets of Republic City was as tense as any night Noin had ever spent waiting on the front lines of a fight for the first attack. But Dorothy, her shoulders square and high, her face upturned with pride, made no aggressive moves at all.

When they reached the pass specified in the message, Noin ordered her men to clear the roads back into the City, sensing from the urgency of the terse writing that she would need to move quickly for the sake of the injured Une. This left her largely alone, with only a few border guards for company against Dorothy and the rest of her Fire Nation entourage.

"You will look after Relena, won't you?"

"I—what?" Noin was caught utterly surprised.

"She's such a fascinating, marvelous person!" Dorothy smirked. "You mustn't let my dear Grandfather harm her."

"If you're so worried about him, defect from the Fire Nation and fight against him!" Noin practically exploded. "Otherwise, stop playing games with us. A blind badgermole could see your kindness is all fake."

"Games is what we have to keep us alive," Dorothy replied, but there was something in her light eyes that had turned deadly serious. "We survive because we are clever, not because we are kind. This is why Relena Peacecraft will ultimately fail, and her dreams with her."

"Well, it's a good thing I don't believe a word of that," Noin replied hotly. "And it's people like you we have to fight to prove it!" She scowled at the princess. "And we will. I promise you that. We'll prove it even if we have to defeat your whole country!"

"I look forward to it, lieutenant," Dorothy actually curtsied, and the sarcasm dripped from her.

It was only the distant rumble, like thunder in the far mountains, warning of the approach of those claiming sanctuary that saved Dorothy from a true fight with Noin.

"I'll say this," Noin thought, angry enough to blast a mountain to pieces. "If I never have to deal with Princess Dorothy again, it will be too soon!" And suddenly she was seized with a moment of silliness and fought not to giggle. Dorothy glared at her, but she focused on the approaching earthbender and ignored her.

"Every moment I've spent with Dorothy has been the most obnoxious, repulsive of my whole life," Noin found herself thinking. "No wonder it feels so refreshingly pleasant to kick her out."

Yes, Noin would happily accept every simpering manipulation for this final moment of freedom.


End file.
